9.20
Class #1: Introduction
Questions based on lecture:
1. What two species of animal were primarily involved in spreading bubonic plague (the
black plague) in medieval Europe? What animals were often blamed?
2. What were the hobbies of the two amateurs, one American man and one German man,
whose discoveries in the early part of the twentieth century led to the establishment of
ethology as a science within European zoology? What did they, independently, discover?
3. Contrast the attitudes of scientists in mid-twentieth century America with those in Europe
towards the study of animal behavior.
4. Edward O. Wilson, a professor at Harvard University, coined the word “sociobiology”
for a field of behavioral study in the title of a 1975 book – a monumental synthesis that
generated much controversy. Why was the book so controversial?
5. How is animal behavior viewed by “behavioral ecologists”?
6. Contrast “mammalogy” and “mammalian ethology”.
Questions based on readings from Corbett’s book:
1. How could Jim Corbett follow the movements of a leopard through the nearby jungle
although he could not see it through the foliage?
2. How was Corbett able to reconstruct accurately how he had walked past a tiger near a
road at night, avoiding passing a few feet from it by crossing the road for unconscious
reasons?
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9.20 Animal Behavior
Fall 2013
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